Antwone Fisher

A Description of the Character, Case and Theoretical Analysis of the Movie Antwone Fisher

Childhoods Rainy Days and Development of Antwone Fisher

A semibiographical story of Antwone Fisher, portrayed in the motion picture with the same name, tells about unruly and defensive disposition of the navy stationed San Diego African-American officer of close and repulsive temper (Washington & Fisher, 2002). Antwone is ordered to see a naval psychiatrist, Jerome Davenport, after confrontation of his anger outburst on the grounds of the racial oppression criticizing his physique, which ends up in fight (Delgado & Stefanic, 2011). After Antwone spends several sessions in silence, refusing to talk and claiming them as a waste of time, he finally decides to recall his abusive childhood experience. He recalls that he was born in the prison the following month after his fathers murder; then he was turned over to the foster home after his mother declined to take him (Washington & Fisher, 2002). Eventually, he reveals his suffering from physical abuse and humiliation, experienced from his foster mother Mrs. Tate; thus, Davenport understands that his childhood trauma experiences triggered Antwone to exercise deliberate avoidance and irritability (Terr, 1991). Antwone recalls that, in a particular moment of his personalitys development, he felt a strong need to defend himself; due to this he was thrown out from the fosters house and was placed into the orphanage, where he had to develop social skills (Zastrow & Kirstashman, 2009). Antwone builds associations concerning his childhood, describing them as the rainy days when something bad happened (Lefrancois, 2011; Washington & Fisher, 2002). During these sessions, Davenport simulates conversation on the occasion when Antwone seeks for his advice concerning the issue of relationships with the girl he admires, Cheryl (Washington & Fisher, 2002). Later he tells Cheryl about his background and explains problems connected to his childhood experience. She supports his insecurities by recalling her fathers post-war struggles with self-being.

After an accident on his leave in Mexico, when Antwone experiences another fight, he confesses to Davenport about sexual abuse he experienced in his foster house. He recalls that he confided about the humiliating experience to his friend Jesse, whose killing he witnessed later. When Antwone recalls his feelings of abandonment by his mother and the friend, Davenport suggests that he should return to Ohio and try to find his biological family (Zastrow & Kirstshman, 2009).

For that purpose, Antwone travels to Cleveland with Cheryl and comes face-to-face with his abusers, making them understand that they did not manage to break his self-being (Lefrancois, 2011; Washington & Fisher, 2002). After an interrogation, Mrs. Tate tells Antwone his fathers last name and he eventually finds his relatives. His fathers relatives take him to see his mother; Antwone confronts her, claiming she had never wondered what have become of him (Washington & Fisher, 2002). Antwone tells his mother that he had an internal mental representation of her coming and taking him from the orphanage, while his mother kept quiet, making him understand that the best thing for him to do was just leave (Berzoff, Flanagan & Hertz, 2011).

Returning to his fathers house, Antwone sees his dream come true a big family meets him with a great feast and happiness (Washington & Fisher, 2002; Fisher & Rivas, 2001). He comes back to San Diego to express his gratitude to Davenport for the effective therapist treatment (Washington & Fisher, 2002). However, Davenport claims that he is himself grateful to Antwone for making him realize that he was only focused on the theoretical procedure of the treatment outcome, disregarding its emotional effectiveness (Washington & Fisher, 2002). Moreover, Davenport states that experience with Antwones case helped him to shift focus from work to his family life and eventually saved his marriage.

In addition, Antwone Fishers background and experience helped him to become a confident and rigorous human character, but negatively influenced his evolvement. His abusive and obstructive past created contradictory thoughts and confusing concerns.

Conflicting and Obstructive Experience in Personality Formation

According to the fundamental premises of object relations theory, Antwone Fishers personality was formed by interpersonal relations that left lasting impressions within his psyche; thus, it was difficult for him to recover from the experienced sexual and physical abuse (Thomson Prout & Brown, 2012). His ego was less healthily defined, making him difficult to relate to others because of his experienced repression of the early infantile separation from his mother (Jordan, 2008). Antwones emotional growth was inhibited because he experienced abusive trauma in the course of his development, when he was not appropriately accepted and his accomplishments were not acknowledged (Englar, 2008).

The strengths of the object relations theory in the case of Antwone Fisher can be described by his dysfunctional behavior that could be explained by the early experienced trauma (Englar, 2008). Tates foster house, as an object, and its mental representation, as relations to it, affected Antwones way of communication with other people (Weiner & Craighead, 2010). Antwone could not keep two contradictory feelings of why his mother did not come back for him and what his caretakers did to him simultaneously; therefore, he kept his focus on the first one (Clarkin, Fonagy & Gabbard, 2010).

The weaknesses of the theory can be described by Antwones good sense of self-worth in his development, regardless the relations of an external object Tates house and an internal object his feelings (Thomson Prout & Brown, 2012). Moreover, his self-representation was not experienced in relation to other significant events, like in the case when his foster mother continuously assaulted him racially and emotionally by claiming that he was an abandoned orphan whom nobody needed and wanted (Jordan, 2008). Eventually, Antwone did not look for their compassion and did not have pathological delay in his development from being unaccepted.

In addition, his internal object relations of his abusive and humiliating experience served as a defensive function of anger outburst, which he used to protect himself from the awareness of the presence of that experience. However, he did not experience the possibility of repression and maintained his self-worth and self-being, regardless of his efforts to resolve early trauma by anger outbursts.

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